ALLENTOWN, Pa. – Allentown City Council voted unanimously Wednesday night to amend the ordinance on pensions and retirement to offer pension service credit to police officers for prior service with a police department in another municipality.
Frank Kane, managing director, said the new legislation is consistent with Act 49 of 2024 that was passed by the Pennsylvania General Assembly to enable municipal police officers to purchase five-year’s worth of pension time from previous employment with another police department.
Kane said the law allows police to buy pension time, but not healthcare.
Councilmember Candida Affa said she has experience riding along with police officers on patrol several times in the past decade.
“And in those 10 years, nothing has changed because we need more police officers,” Affa said. “We need to give them any kind of incentive to shore up our police department. We’re supposed to have around 300 police officers; we have like 212.”
“Riding with the officers, I noticed what a difference police presence makes, and if we can give any incentive, especially this one, where we can get seasoned officers to come and shore up our police department, I encourage my colleagues to vote ‘yes,’” she said.
The administration said about 10 officers have already applied for the new benefit.
Noise ordinance
In other business, council voted to adopt legislation to amend the noise ordinance to strengthen the regulations.
Allentown City Council voted unanimously Wednesday night to amend the data center zoning regulations that were put in place last month.
The new regulations control sound level limits by land uses defined as neighborhood zones, mixed-use neighborhood zones, public-institutional zones, mixed-use zones and industrial.
The amendments also set regulations for continuously operating noise sources such as industrial uses which operate through the night.
Although unrelated to the new zoning laws to regulate data centers, council said the upgraded noise regulations will assist with enforcement for any potential data centers in the city.